BiblioFiles: A CenterForLit Podcast about Great Books, Great Ideas, and the Great Conversation

In our last episode, we discussed the concerns about theatre raised by the Reformation. Today we're looking at The Tempest as Shakespeare's answer to the question about the good of performance art. We talk about why Shakespeare has had such a lasting influence, not only on theatre, but on the English language as a whole, and we examine the "metatheater" of The Tempest for clues about what the Bard hoped he was accomplishing with his own work.

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The CenterForLit crew attempts a huge historical leap in this episode as we try to bridge the gap between Greek drama and the Reformation. We talk about the sacred and ritual aspects of theatre before its secularization, and then use that context to make sense of why the Reformers had such a violet response to the art form.

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Buy the books we're discussing this season and support BiblioFiles!⁠⁠

⁠⁠Follow our Substack and join the conversation.

In a Jason-like heroic struggle, Ian wrestles his wife and his mother in a conversation about Euripides' Medea. We talk about the function of this play in its historical context, argue about how much sympathy the main characters deserve, and marvel at the playwright's avant-garde perspective on Athenian society.

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Buy the books we're discussing this season and support BiblioFiles!⁠

⁠Follow our Substack and join the conversation!

Welcome to a new season of BiblioFiles! In this first episode, the CenterForLit crew introduces our theatrical theme and discusses the similarities and differences between reading a work of prose and reading a play. We talk about the challenge of interpreting such a dialogue-heavy art form, as well as the competing interpretations involved in staging a play. We also reveal our own histories with the theater and lament missed opportunities to live in the limelight.

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Buy the books we're discussing this season and support BiblioFiles!

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In the final episode of our season on Juvenile and YA Fiction, the entire CenterForLit crew gathers to reminisce about how they got hooked on reading as children. We also discuss how to go about guiding young readers through the current environment of juvenile and YA literature.

Referenced Works:

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• American Adventure Stories for Boys

  
  



• Forever Island by Patrick D. Smith

  
  



• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

  
  



• A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter

  
  



• John Paul Jones by Vincent Brown

  
  



• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

  
  



• The Cat of Bubastes by G.A. Henty

  
  



• Eragon by Christopher Paolini

  
  



• Mara: Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

  
  



• Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne

  
  



• The Box Car Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  
  



• The Borrowers by Mary Norton

  
  



• The Littles by John Peterson

  
  



• The Complete Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem

  
  



• Stuart Little by E.B. White

  
  



• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

  
  



• Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

  
  



• The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

  
  

Please ⁠join the Facebook group⁠ and ⁠subscribe to our Substack Newsletter⁠!

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the Great Conversation.

Emily joins Ian in this episode to talk about our first author who writes solely in the YA genre: John Green. They discuss what makes his work so different from others we’ve covered this season and what that means for parents and readers who want to benefit from his rich, literary voice.

Referenced Works:

You can support the CenterForLit Podcast Network by making a purchase through our affiliate programs!

• Turtles All the Way Down

  
  



• Longing for an Absent God: Faith and Doubt in Great American Fiction by Nick Ripatrazone

  
  



• Vlog Brothers

  
  



• Crash Courses

  
  



• “Has this artist ever seen a baby?”

  
  



• Heavyweight #37: John Green

  
  



• The Anthropocene Reviewed

  
  



• Looking for Alaska

  
  



• The Fault in our Stars

  
  



• Paper Towns 

  
  



• An Abundance of Katherines

  
  



• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles 

  
  

Please ⁠join the Facebook group⁠ and ⁠subscribe to our Substack Newsletter⁠!

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the Great Conversation.

In this episode, Megan joins Ian to talk about the magic of Jeanne Birdsall’s Penderwicks series. They discuss what it is about this series that appeals so well to audiences of all ages and what that can teach us about good writing for young readers.

Referenced Works:

You can support the CenterForLit Podcast Network by making a purchase through our affiliate programs!

• The Penderwicks Boxed Set

  
  



• The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

  
  



• The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

  
  



• The Penderwicks at Point Mouette

  
  



• The Penderwicks in Spring

  
  



• The Penderwicks at Last

  
  



• Harry Potter Boxed Set

  
  



• Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

  
  

Please ⁠join the Facebook group⁠ and ⁠subscribe to our Substack Newsletter⁠!

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the Great Conversation.

What can CenterForLit’s favorite children’s author teach us about the difference between juvenile and YA fiction? Adam and Missy sit down with Ian in this episode to talk about what makes the work of Gary D. Schmidt so special.

Referenced Works:

You can support the CenterForLit Podcast Network by making a purchase through our affiliate programs!

• BiblioFiles Episode #19: An Interview with Author Gary D. Schmidt

  
  



• Orbiting Jupiter

  
  



• Okay for Now

  
  



• The Labors of Hercules Beal

  
  



• Straw Into Gold

  
  



• Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

  
  



• The Wednesday Wars

  
  



• Just Like That

  
  



• A Long Road on a Short Day by Elizabeth Stickney and Gary D. Schmidt

  
  



• Pay Attention, Carter Jones

  
  

Please ⁠join the Facebook group⁠ and ⁠subscribe to our Substack Newsletter⁠!

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the Great Conversation.

The next genre we're discussing this season has a special place in Andrews family lore. By tradition, each new generation is handed a mystery novel as they come of age to encourage a lifetime love of reading. Adam joins Ian in this episode to discuss his own affinity for the genre, and the two reminisce about their first encounters with detective fiction.

Referenced Works:

You can support the CenterForLit Podcast Network by making a purchase through our affiliate programs!

• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

  
  



• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

  
  



• The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe

  
  



• The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  
  



• The Complete Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton

  
  



• Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers

  
  



• Bleak House by Charles Dickens

  
  



• The Hardy Boys Starter Set

  
  



• Encyclopedia Brown Box Set by Donald J. Sobol

  
  



• In the Woods by Tana French

  
  



• The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

  
  



• Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

  
  



• Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

  
  



• Nancy Drew Starter Set

  
  

  
  

  
  

Please ⁠join the Facebook group⁠ and ⁠subscribe to our Substack Newsletter⁠!

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the Great Conversation.

No other genre has been influenced by the emergence of YA fiction quite like dystopian literature. In this episode, Megan and Emily join Ian to compare recent dystopian contributions aimed at young adults like Divergent and The Hunger Games to 20th century classics like 1984 and Lord of the Flies.

Referenced Works:

You can support the CenterForLit Podcast Network by making a purchase through our affiliate programs!

• The How to Eat an Elephant podcast

  
  



• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

  
  



• The Mazerunner by James Dashner

  
  



• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

  
  



• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

  
  



• Divergent by Veronica Roth

  
  



• 1984 by George Orwell

  
  



• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

  
  



• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

  
  



• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

  
  



• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

  
  



• Utopia by Sir Thomas More

  
  



• Plato’s Republic

  
  



• Lord of the Flies by William Golding

  
  



• The Giver by Lois Lowry

  
  



• Red Rising by Pierce Brown

  
  



• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

  
  



• Dune by Frank Herbert

  
  



• Foundation by Isaac Asimov

  
  



• The Space/Ransom Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

  
  

Please ⁠join the Facebook group⁠ and ⁠subscribe to our Substack Newsletter⁠!

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the Great Conversation.